Okay, so technically, Mikey was supposed to stay home. He was still sort of running a fever, and all three of his brothers had looked really reluctant to leave him in the morning, and he had promised Leo he would take it easy...

But no one ever said he wasn't allowed to leave the apartment. It was just sort of... implied.

So it was with a mostly clear conscience that Mikey caught a bus to Murray Hill- the one in Queens, not the one near Manhattan. It was only a few miles east of Flushing, barely a ten minute drive from their apartment when the traffic was good. He would be back way before his brothers got home.

Mikey eased into a seat near the front of the bus and pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window. He was so tired.

Usually being sick came with lots and lots of drinking soup and drifting in and out of sleep, but lately he couldn't really stomach much food, and he barely slept at all. It seemed like every time Mikey closed his eyes, he was there- that terrifying man from the soccer field, with his weirdly bright eyes and twisted smile- and that mental image wasn't exactly conducive to getting any amount of rest.

Mikey shivered, and rubbed his arms through the thin sleeves of his hoodie.

He didn't want to tell his brothers. He didn't want them to have anything to do with that creep, especially not if he was out to make trouble for Raphael. Mikey was half-hoping the whole thing would just disappear.

But there was a sick, anxious twist in his stomach, and he was beginning to think he had "intuition," after all... though it certainly wasn't looking like any good would come out of it.

"You sure this is your stop, kid?"

Pulled abruptly out of his thoughts, Mikey blinked up at the bus driver, and then out the window.

The station was maybe a little sketchy-looking, with nothing but a payphone and a few dudes lingering by the curb; that was probably why the bus driver was turned in his seat to look back at Mikey with a furrowed brow, but the youngest Hamato teetered to his feet with a reassuring smile.

"Sure I'm sure. I'm meeting my friend here."

Well, in theory anyway. Mikey leaned against the payphone and dug out his phone with a frown as the bus pulled away, making sure he got the time right. But no, he'd said nine-thirty. And Leatherhead said he'd be there to pick him up. And that conversation had only been about an hour ago.

Huh. Where are you, buddy?

He took a seat on the bench, because he was feeling just a tiny bit light-headed, and glanced down the street. As the minutes dragged by, Mikey thought he could probably find Leatherhead's apartment from the station; it couldn't have been more than three or four blocks away. It was near a church, if he remembered right...

Thankfully, one of the men waiting by the road knew what "dark-reddish, sorta small, with like a cross out front" church he was talking about, and pointed him in the right direction.

It was close to nine-fifty when Mikey started down the street, and he couldn't help the quiet worry that was starting to nag at the back of his mind. Sure, he hadn't known Leatherhead very long, but Mikey knew him well enough. He wasn't the type to just bail.

The walk from the station to Leatherhead's place was about as long as the ride from Flushing to Murray Hill. Mikey sorta had to take it easy, and stopped twice when it felt like he was gonna fall over, but made it to the apartment building safe and sound and feeling victorious.

But the glee fell away when Mikey noticed the old red hatchback parked by the curb.

That's his car, he thought uneasily, starting up the stairs to his apartment at a trot. Thankfully, his pal lived on the second floor, and within a few minutes he was knocking on the door.

"Leatherhead? Buddy? Hey, it's Mike," he called through the wood. "Uh, you weren't at the station so I just came over. Dude?"

There was no answer, and Mikey frowned. He reached into his pocket for his phone again, wondering if he should try calling, and about that time something fell with a thunk that shook the floor, followed by the sound of breaking glass or porcelain. Mikey jumped, heart lurching painfully.

"Woah! L, you okay in there?"

There was no answer, but something inside shattered like a gunshot.

Thoroughly freaked out, Mikey grabbed the doorknob. It was locked, of course it was, so he dropped to his knees without a thought and scrambled to get under the welcome mat for the spare key. Coming up with the key in hand, he made short work of unlocking the door throwing it open wide.

If it had been a robbery or something, a short fourteen year old coming off a bad fever probably wouldn't have inspired much fear in the criminal's heart, but it wasn't anything like that.

It was all Leatherhead, on a rage-induced rampage, and the sight of him had Mikey frozen in the doorway.

The apartment looked like a crime scene, furniture upended and broken glass and plastic littered across what seemed like every square inch of the floor. The bright laminate countertop in the kitchenette was smeared with something wet and red, and Mikey's stomach turned anxiously.

His eyes flew to his friend, whose shoulders were heaving, chest swelling and collapsing hard and fast, fists clenched and dripping-

"Leatherhead?" Mikey tried softly, eyes wide. "Hey... man, you're bleeding."

Leatherhead didn't give any indication he'd heard him, still sucking in those harsh, gigantic breaths, so Mikey eased a few steps inside and shut the door carefully behind him. He had no clue what was going on, but he knew intuitively, somehow, that panic and noise would make everything worse. Picking his way cautiously and quietly across the floor, Mikey cleared his throat from about an arm's length away.

"Buddy? Leatherhead? Can you hear me?"

Touching his friend's arm was the absolute last-ditch appeal, but one that, after what felt like a whole minute had gone by, Mikey resorted to. Taking a deep breath and holding it, his fingers crossed the space between them and landed, feather-light, on Leatherhead's shoulder.

That got his attention.

As quickly as he'd been in that alley when they first met, when he'd thrown that Purple Dragon punk against the bricks, Leatherhead had Mikey pinned to the wall so hard it hurt. Head spinning, Mikey didn't say a word. Or blink. Or even breathe that much.

Leatherhead was big. And his hands were like steel where they gripped Mikey's arms, unrelenting and staining the cheerful orange of Mikey's hoodie a brown, rusty color. And looking up at him, Mikey was scared.

Because his eyes were wide and frantic and terrified and- gone. L wasn't there, he wasn't in the apartment, he was somewhere else. Somewhere awful and dark, someplace so terrible it was driving him crazy. Scared for him, Mikey didn't move.

"Leatherhead?" he whispered, searching his friend's face for any sign of recognition. It was like he was having a nightmare while he was awake, and Mikey didn't know what to do. He racked his brain for a breathless moment, and landed on the comforting litany he usually got from his brothers, when they woke him up from a bad dream. Something like that- maybe something like that would work. "It's me- it's Michelangelo. If you can hear me, you're home. You're home at your apartment. It's still morning, and the rain stopped hours ago. It's a nice day out. It's just you and me here, safe and sound. You're safe, buddy. You're home."

The bruising hands didn't loosen around his shoulders even a little, but Leatherhead's breathing started to even out. Mikey took that as a good sign.

The light didn't come back to Leatherhead's eyes for what felt like hours, and Mikey just kept talking until it did, over the frantic pounding of his own heart.